Texan fatally stabbed after karaoke dispute in Thailand

Jul. 31, 2013
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Ao Nang beach, on the west coast of Thailand. Police charged three musicians with the stabbing death of a Dallas businessman who reportedly refused to stop singing and leave the stage. / Kallerna via Wikipedia

by Michael Winter, USA TODAY

by Michael Winter, USA TODAY

A Dallas businessman was stabbed to death early Wednesday in a karaoke bar in Thailand after an allegedly drunken argument with the band because he and his son refused to stop singing and leave the stage, according to police and news reports.

Police arrested three band members over the killing of 51-year-old Bobby Ray Carter Jr., who was stabbed in the chest outside the Little Longhorn Saloon at Ao Nang beach in Krabi, on Thailand's west coast, police said. His 27-year-old son, Adam, was injured during a fight with the band members outside.

The Carters were participating in "jam with the band," which offers bar patrons a free CD of their singalong.

"Witnesses said (Bobby) Carter got angry when the band played Hotel California instead of the song he requested, and he refused to step down," Krabi city police chief Col. Taksin Pochakorn told the Associated Press.

Carter then became enraged when the three musicians took a break, and he knocked over their tip box after demanding his gratuity be returned, another police official told the AFP news agency.

As they left the bar, the Carters then confronted the band outside and resumed the argument, one musician told police, the Phuket Gazette reported.

"The father knocked me to the ground first, and I could not breathe because he was sitting on my chest," Ratikorn Romin, 27, reportedly said in his statement to police. "Then I spotted a sharp piece of metal nearby, so I grabbed it and stabbed him."

Ratikorn and his bandmates - Sathit Somsa, 40, and Nopanan Yoddecha, 26 - said they did not start the fight and did not intend to kill anyone, according to the Bangkok Post.

AP said all were charged with causing death by physical attack; officer Sanya Kaewnui told the Gazette they were charged with assault and murder. Sathit was also charged with possession of an illegal firearm.

Bobby Ray Carter owned LED Cool Lights, an LED lighting manufacturers with offices in Dallas and China. He was a Dallas native and former executive with UPS, CBS DFW-TV said.

A family statement said that Carter, his wife, son and friends were on vacation, and that reports alleging he had "provoked the men who attacked and killed him are without merit."

The family said it is "calling on the Thai justice system to hold these criminals accountable to the fullest extent of the law for this senseless loss of life."